Ray Bradbury quotes

“A book is a loaded gun.”

“And what, you ask, does writing teach us? First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is a gift and a privilege, not a right.”

“Anything you dream is fiction, and anything you accomplish is science, the whole history of mankind is nothing but science fiction.”

“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there.

It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.”

“I don't believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don't have any money.”

“I have never listened to anyone who criticized my taste in space travel, sideshows or gorillas. When this occurs, I pack up my dinosaurs and leave the room.”

“I have two rules in life - to hell with it, whatever it is, and get your work done.”

“If we listened to our intellect we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go in business because we'd be cynical: "It's gonna go wrong." Or "She's going to hurt me." Or,"I've had a couple of bad love affairs, so therefore . . ." Well, that's nonsense. You're going to miss life. You've got to jump off the cliff all the time and build your wings on the way down.”

“If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll never learn.”

“Insanity is relative. It depends on who has who locked in what cage.”

“Learning to let go should be learned before learning to get. Life should be touched, not strangled. You’ve got to relax, let it happen at times, and at others move forward with it.”

“Looking back over a lifetime, you see that love was the answer to everything.”

“Love what you do and do what you love. Don't listen to anyone else who tells you not to do it. You do what you want, what you love. Imagination should be the center of your life.”

“Oh God, the terrible tyranny of the majority. We all have our harps to play. And it's up to you to know with which ear you'll listen.”

“Self-consciousness is the enemy of all art, be it acting, writing, painting, or living itself, which is the greatest art of all.”

“Stuff your eyes with wonder, he said, live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.”

“Stuff your eyes with wonder. Live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. Ask no guarantees, ask for no security, there never was such an animal. And if there were, it would be related to the great sloth which hangs upside down in a tree all day every day, sleeping its life away. To hell with that . Shake the tree and knock the great sloth down on his ass.”

“That's the great secret of creativity. You treat ideas like cats: you make them follow you.”

“The average TV commercial of sixty seconds has one hundred and twenty half-second clips in it, or one-third of a second. We bombard people with sensation. That substitutes for thinking.”

“The first thing you learn in life is you're a fool. The last thing you learn in life is you're the same fool.”

“The Internet is a big distraction. It's distracting, it's meaningless; it's not real. It's in the air somewhere.”

“The minute you get a religion you stop thinking. Believe in one thing too much and you have no room for new ideas.”

“Those who don't build must burn.”

“We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.”

“When they give you lined paper, write the other way.”

“Without libraries what have we? We have no past and no future.”

“Write a short story every week. It’s not possible to write 52 bad stories in a row.”

“You can’t try to do things; you simply must do them.”

“You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.”

“You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance.”

“Your intuition knows what to write, so get out of the way.”